Shadow Puppets
by Michelle
Summary: Even when all hope is lost, what choice is there but to live?
1. Prologue & I

Author's Note: This is the darkest fic I have ever written. Please heed the warnings. Beta reading done by the inimitable rg.

_Prologue_

I am running.

The wind blows in my face, catching loose pieces of my hair, and flings them back into my eyes. Droplets of rain clog my vision as I press on, ever on, through the dark.

I can hear them now, dogging my heels. In spite of my desperate flight, I know they will soon take me; I know that soon, very soon, my life will be forfeit.

The thought of my demise spurs me on. My feet hasten, though I know I cannot maintain such a pace. Soon . . .

I push through a close stand of trees, and my cloak catches, pulling me back and dragging me to my knees. I claw at the clasp, forgetting how it opens in my frantic rush. A gift from my late boyfriend, it is forgotten on the ground as I straighten and surge forward.

A crash, much closer than the last, causes me to look back, and I trip over a fallen limb, sprawling in the rapidly dampening ground. My lungs and legs aflame, I briefly wonder how much longer I can do this, how much longer I shall be able to evade them.

My answer comes when I see the first dark-robed figure step into my view. Silver mask glinting in the moonlight, his gaze falls upon me for the briefest moment.

I go absolutely still. Even my blistering need for air abates, and I lower my head to the ground. Maybe, somehow, perhaps he didn't . . .

He takes one step toward my slapdash hiding place, and I know that I am lost.

Another dark figure crashes into my view and joins the first.

"Which way?" the new arrival asks. I cringe, waiting for the words that will end my life.

"I am uncertain." The deep voice of the first astonishes me.

_Of course he's certain!_ Some quickly-quelled suicidal tendency screams. _He was looking directly at me, for Merlin's sake!_

"He will be very angry for this." The emphasis on the first word makes clear just who "he" is. The Dark Lord, Voldemort. Leader of the ever growing Death Eaters. And soon, unless I am sorely mistaken, leader of wizarding Britain.

"Indeed." I perk up at the voice, so familiar, but from from where?

Without a further glance my way, the two men disappear from my sight, heading off into the woods. Searching.

I gasp for air, filling my lungs and flip to my back. With a low chuckle, I celebrate my narrow escape. Though I am now laying in a mudhole, I am grateful to be alive. I was so certain of my doom in those final moments . . .

And then I gasp again, remembering from where I knew the voice. It was He. The Traitor.

Snape.

_I._

It seems that I cannot escape this place. I have tried, oh, how I have tried. But every time I set foot outside my secret-kept haven, nary a minute passes before I am running for my life. This latest attempt was my fifth such venture, no different from the last, save for the fact that I've never been so close to actually being caught.

We should have known better than to come back here, after . . . In the back of our minds, we knew what we would find, but we had to come. There was nothing left for us out there, and we were still Gryffindor enough to think we could make it without being caught. I have to admit that a large part of me wouldn't let me rest until I saw the remains of my childhood with my own eyes. And so, one cloudy summer morning, we made our way back to Hogwarts.

The utter destruction left me speechless.

I thought I could handle it. I could not.

I think we both nearly went mad in those first days, after we found the rotting corpses. I still don't know how we managed to make it to the Shack. I wake up some nights, dreaming of those faces, unmarred, pure, as they were rowed across the lake, eager visages alight, ready to begin their education. That, I'm afraid, was a very long time ago. A different world, perhaps.

I still don't understand what happened here. I can not fathom how people could let these children die; their own children! Didn't that mean anything anymore? Were they so afraid of Voldemort that they would abandon even the most basic of human instincts? It didn't make sense. It doesn't make sense. I suspect that no matter how long I live, five more days, five decades, this situation will never make sense to me.

I'm holed up now, alone in the Shrieking Shack. Ron and I cast the Fidelius Charm on it just after Harry . . . after Harry died. We hid here for days, waiting for something, a sign, anything! Just something that would tell us we were safe. If we could just make it off the old school grounds . . .

Some time ago (two months? three?), Ron left to find food.

He did not return.

And now I wait here, alone, trying to escape, but failing. My body is frail, and I feel weaker by the day. I would have starved already if not for the rats. They've never seemed susceptible to the Fidelius, a fact for which I can't decide if I'm thankful or disgusted.

No matter. Tomorrow I will try again, my last attempt.

Tomorrow.


	2. II, III, & IV

_II._

It is a warm yet damp morning I awake to and I rise from the mite-infested pallet on the floor. If not for the mud caked in it, my hair would be exceptionally frizzy, or at least more so than usual. It has been a long time since my hair was frizzy.

I didn't sleep well last night. Dreams of the past haunted me, bordering on nightmares. I think i saw Harry last night -- I think he spoke to me, but I don't remember what he said. I no longer care enough to hope that he isn't welcoming me to his side of the veil.

My hand brushes a scabbed over patch on at my waist as I pull on my outer robe. I stare at it, uncomprehending. I don't recall the wound; I must have received it the evening prior. Blood is slowly seeping from the wound.

That does not matter.

I leave the tunnel at a dead sprint; I hope to make the woods this time before they realize I have left its decrepit walls.

A part of me, the smallest remnant of a once insatiable curiousity wonders how they could not find me in that place, holed up in the Shrieking Shack. The Muggle part of me doesn't believe that Ron and I could make the world forget such a well-known place.

Triple cracks sound directly behind me; apparation. I'm too weak to manage it now, even if I could picture a place still safe enough to go. Perhaps He was right all along about my inferiority . . .

It begins to rain when the first curse hits.

_III._

Moments bleed into infinity as more dark-hooded devils join their curses to the first. I stop distinguishing between specific curses and simply scream.

I have never felt such pain as this. It seeps into every pore, every nerve, every crack, every nuance of my very soul. I go mindless with my inability to process it all.

When I first learned of the Death Eaters and the things they did so very long ago, I imagined that I would withstand anything they threw at me. Certainly, even if they caught me, I would never abase myself so far as to beg for mercy. I would never give them that satisfaction. I was Hermione Granger, muggle-born witch, best friend to the Boy Who Lived. The possibilities were endless . . .

It appears that my attackers agree with the sentiment. Bored with simply causing my raw, physical pain, the first man falls upon me, rending the remainders of my garments from my flesh. I am too tired to beg. Too tired even to think.

I begin to accept the inevitability of my demise. They would not defile me if they planned to let me live. No matter how intelligent I once was, no matter my potential, I am filth to them.

Leftover surges of pain wrack my body. I think the fourth (or is he the fifth?) is enjoying the sporadic convulsions reverberating through me.

Pervert.

I don't know how long I have been laying here in the field just beyond the edge of the Forbidden Forest. I don't really care to know either, should some well-meaning hex bless me with the information.

Blood pours from several parts of my body; my life was seeps out into the damp ground. As another man pounds into me, I hope that some tiny organism will be nourished from those last drops of my vitality. I would hate to die so needlessly.

A grunt, and he rolls off me. I lay limp, waiting for the next taker.

Someone begins screaming at me, obscenities that I can't quite make out. I realize then that they are not yelled at me, though nevertheless come from my assailants.

"Avada Kedavra!" It was shouted repeatedly. Each time, I held my breath, bracing for the empty release of death.

Finally, a heavy, decidedly male weight falls upon me, and I feel a surprisingly familiar tug of nausea in my gut.

Apparation.

_IV._

I open my eyes to a red haze of pain, and I know that I am barely conscious. My surroundings are unfamiliar, but perhaps that is not the case for the near-skeletal form that picks himself off me.

I frown.

"P . . . Pr . . . P . . . Snape?" I ask. My voice is raw and cracked. I haven't used it for such fine articulation as a name in what seems like half a lifetime.

He scowls at me, pulling his wand out, brandishing it. Yet even as he does so, I am decidedly unafraid. Why would he go to the trouble of saving me, if . . .

"I ought to, you know," he snarls.

I blink in surprise. I forgot about that particular talent of his. But no spell was cast . . .

"Oh, it's written all over your face, you silly girl." He speaks harshly, but I can't detect actual malice in his words. I wince as an aftershock of my very-recent cursing courses through me. Something rapidly approacing concern crosses his features.

He swishes and flicks his wand in my direction, and I begin to feel the bone-deep aches lift from me. He mutters as he heals me. It's nearly surreal being healed by the very man who betrayed us. Could it really be possible that I've been so blind . . . ?

"I can't believe what you made me do, Granger. It's all over for me now, and it's all your fault." I relish every word. No one has spoken so much in my presence in more time that I can count.

"I don't know why I even bothered. Should Avada the both of us and save me the trouble of running with you. Monstrous little know-it-all." I'd grin at the nickname, if I could. He hasn't made his way to that end of my body yet.

"Har har," he intones. "Laugh it up all you want. We'll certainly never be safe again." He uses that word, we, with such force. I have been so very lonely since Ron died. I feel a bit of that lonliness finally abate.

He finishes his ministrations after another few rounds of facetious cursing in my general direction and helps me to a sitting position. I manage it, but not without some twinges of pain. It's a far cry from what I was feeling even moments ago.

He rummages within the folds of his midnight robes, pulling forth a thin phial. He uncorks it and hands it to me.

"For any unwanted . . . side effects."

He does not meet my eyes as he says it. I tip the contents down my parched throat and return the emptied container to him.

I will not ask why he is carrying such a brew.

He looks at me with his unfathomably black gaze.

"Now what precisely am I supposed to do with you?"


	3. Epilogue

_Epilogue_

Not so long ago, I would have been disgusted by my current lot in life. But much has changed in these past few years, least of all my own attitudes.

We left England without a backward glance. I couldn't have done it without him, and I'd like to think the same was true for him, if for completely different reasons.

I am far from completely sane even still, long years after the events by the Shrieking Shack. I will very probably always find myself shrinking from certain touches, even from him, my closest and dearest ally. But he doesn't press me when he senses my recoil. In return, I grant him the same privelage.

He was correct in his original assessment: we are never safe, not completely. We have yet to remain more than six months in the same place. One of us catches a glimpse of something out of the corner of an eye, something familiar from our other life, and we are forced to flee. Luckily, the world is a very large place, full of hidden nooks and crannies.

We are in some backwater in Asia now, our appearances and speech charmed to blend seamlessly in with the local. Of course, no matter how much we try to blend, real locals usually know we aren't from around there. Still, the charms are sufficient for most purposes, and such creative work has always come naturally to me.

I am reading a newspaper in a cafe now, my companion beside me sipping tea. One hand brushes mine, resting over the swell of my belly as he flips through a heavily dog-earred travel guide.

It is not a choice either one of us would have made, had we the concious choice. But resources were extremely slim for several months, and, as they say, here we are. Despite my own (and his, for that matter) more rational moments, we shall not give this last hope up, and I have begun to dream of a brighter future. Late at night when he thinks I am asleep, he whispers to the nascent life within me, telling tales of a world that no longer exists.

We haven't decided whre we will go next, but must make the decision soon, today if possible. Yesterday, I thought I saw a platinum blonde head amongst the sea of black. It was most likely no more than my hormones playing out my darkest fears, but we did not get this far or live this long by taking chances. Personally, I hope our next stop has running water.

I wonder what my mother would think of me now if she were still alive. I'd like to think that she'd be proud of what I've become in spite of my past. I sometimes imagine that she's somewhere up there, smiling down on me and nodding in tacit approval.

As for my dearest friends, I barely can admit that I am happy that they are no longer here. I'm not sure our friendship would have survived this upheaval. I am certain, however, that they could not have lived the way Snape and I have these last years. It wasn't in Harry or Ron to hide, even at the expense of their own lives.

He tried to tell me once, about my erstwhile lover's ultimate demise. I didn't let him finish the tale. I want Ron to remain in my mind as he was the last time I saw him, smiling at me from the doorway with promises of strawberries and christmas pudding.

But that is all in the past now, and I force it behind me where it belongs. I have a different life to live, one that I am reasonably content with, one utterly removed from those tranquil days in Scotland.

But I'd like to think we've found our own tranquility.


End file.
